


not that I want to be a god or a hero

by Analinea



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, I had this debate in other tags once, I suppose I'm not an expert and this is like 6k, Lance's family - Freeform, M/M, Or next in Ana can finally make use of her space theme obsession in a space story, Slow Burn, Universe Alteration, Witches, a lot of headcanons, accidental parallels with movies, back in october, domestic team feels, flangst, i guess, or angsff, the team becomes a family just like those avengers 2012 fics I'm nostalgic about, this is technically a reupload, this used to have another (lame) title, what's the term for 50-50 angst and fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 12:11:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18964972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Analinea/pseuds/Analinea
Summary: It's a way of keeping up the pretense that life is still life; that age can still matters when you're a child and a soldier. It's a way of finding balance in the silence of the stars when one by one they realize that the only thing tethering them to sanity is filling the empty spaces with laughter.





	not that I want to be a god or a hero

**Author's Note:**

> _just change into a tree, grow for ages, not hurt anyone - Czeslaw Milosz_
> 
> I posted this a while ago, hated it, took it down, revamped most of it, still kinda hate it but that's because I read it one time too many *shrugs* I tried to let it sit for a day and read it again but my friend told me that at 11:30pm you can argue that tomorrow's half an hour away so...blame her?  
> Also, back in october I wasn't in a good emotional place so it was a huge mistake to try and post anything and I kinda blew up in another story that I also took down, anyone having witnessed my fourteen yo self making a special appearance has my deepest apologies *rings the shame bell*
> 
> On that note, I'll return to not being retired and work on my next Sterek fic *bows* enjoy!

Standing there in this desert-surrounded shack, he looked at the board with all the papers and the drawings, the pictures, the strings tying it all together to unravel a mystery, and he thought: _this boy is a hunter_.

What else could he do then, in close quarters, in life or death, in falling in love, than keep the danger at arms length with petty fights and made up rivalries?

_He must never know_ , he thought next, because the fire in this boy's veins. Well, it used to burn witches.

 

Lance is not afraid of speed, not up in the sky. He stops breathing every time a car swallows up the road too fast and he damn near loses his mind on Keith's hover bike -the guy is nuts and the ground is too close.

But next to the clouds or surrounded by the black ink of space, it's not fear that freezes his lungs. It's the freedom. The energy that thrums in his bones makes him whoop and loop and the joy is a living thing running to the tip of his fingers until there is nothing but peace.

He is happy, that's not a lie. Tragedy is a background noise in his brain that only seems louder in quiet hours -so he fills the silence. Then he can forget about it - _habituation_ \- just like he forgets about the scars under his shirt as long as he doesn't look at them.

Later, looking at the white cryosuit covering his skin, he figures that someone must have seen. But no one mentions it and he doesn't bring it up. Jumping in front of a bomb soon fades in memories even if sometimes Coran gets this _look_ that Lance knows too well. A concern that waits for the recipient to talk about it. Good thing Lance has years of practice in redirection -and Pidge makes it easy too, when she's suddenly a girl.

So with everyone moving on, Lance can safely tuck himself back under his jacket and his jokes.

Mind-melding exercises are a new kind of challenge. He tames every remembrance of his family hoping no one will notice the otherness. How these are not simple humans but myths.

He still shows the pretty picture of this larger-than-life home, certain it hides the absence that gnaws at him at the worst of times -when he's tired, or when his friends take risks with their lives that make him so angry. Don't they know, how precious they are?

Often, his worry is confused for rivalry and it's infuriating but he's the one that wanted it this way. He has no idea how to fix it.

Instead he tries to let time smooth the sharp edges– days, weeks pass, and by the time it's months none of them can keep track anymore and they replace the words with an alien measurement of time anyway. They try to celebrate birthdays.

It's a way of keeping up the pretense that life is still life; that age can still matters when you're a child and a soldier. It's a way of finding balance in the silence of the stars when one by one they realize that the only thing tethering them to sanity is filling the empty spaces with laughter.

 

“I hate bugs, I hate bugs please take it away, how did it get on a mother-quiznacking spaceship?” Pidge runs away with her laptop clutched in her arms like a teddy-bear.

“Pidge, your lion shoots _trees_ ,” Hunk tries to be reasonable, he does. But with one friend screaming and the other one rolling on the floor laughing, it's hard.

“What does that have to do with anything?” she squeals, before remembering she's supposed to be more badass than that. She clears her throat to regain a semblance of composure.

“Nature? Rings a bell?”

It's muscle memory to shout “I reject nature!” She even strikes the pose before cringing when Hunk and the bug get a little too close on their way to safety.

The same quintent, Keith suggests to blow up a Galran base first and ask questions later; he doesn't get it when Pidge and Lance start calling him Rico.

“But...that's not my name?” he frowns, confused.

That's how they end up watching their first movie in space -it used to be one of Matt's favorite so of course she has it on her computer.

The best part of the evening is sharing embarrassing stories. Coran has the wildest. That's how it really starts, the slow warming up of space.

 

It could be funny to see them all power-walking after one another, a line up from most angry to most worried, and opening the way is the one who masterfully screwed-up. Trust Keith to come out glorious from breaking the rules.

“What you did was reckless.” Shiro's learned long ago that you don't yell at Keith, but he's forceful with his words and his lecture lasts long after they've gathered in the control room. Rehashed platitudes about teams and danger that have no place in the heat of battle, in Keith's opinion. He doesn't defend himself at first, sure of his decision -no one else had seen the charged weapon aimed straight at Shiro's back.

But soon five voices weave together a dissonant argument, fraying Keith's nerves until he screams, posture going from defense to offense. “I knew what I was doing!”

“Fuck, Rafi, stop saying that when you clearly don't!” Lance explodes and doesn't register the confused silence immediately.

Keith's lined-up retort - _go to hell, Lance_ \- changes at the last tick but he's left with the momentum of his anger in his tone. “Who's Rafi?” he barks.

Something cold coils round Lance's bones as he takes in all eyes on him. “What?”

“Who's– you called me Rafi,” Keith frowns, ready to be offended if it's like the movie reference from last time, but when he glances at Pidge the joke seems lost on her too.

Lance opens his mouth, finds his words stuck somewhere deep in his stomach by a barrage of thorny vines crawling up his throat; ugly flowers bloom at the back of his throat, choke him, but when he coughs there's nothing there.

“Did you concuss yourself when you were showing off? I have no idea what you're talking about,” Lance sneers. The fight is familiar but Lance doesn't regret the damage it does to their progress. He just lets Keith's fire burn away the memory of his brother's name.

 

In the end, it's just a matter of luck; it's what Lance thought, lying in the snow, staring at the dark sky while his brother's golden magic was draining from his body, red drops by red drops, staining the white. It mingled with Lance's own blood and you'd never guess they're so different.

Lance watched the last of his brother's breaths make puffs of white between the snowflakes. You'd never guess, no, that Raphael shouldn't be the one to die; but in the end powers or sentient robots don't matter, even when they're the most beautiful thing in the world. You could be a king, but staying alive is nothing but the flip of a coin.

 

“Who would've thought, like, magic? In space?” Pidge gestures madly with her arms, laying on her back on the floor. Is quintessence really made of the same fabric as magic, though, is an on-going debate that isn't settled -Pidge and her factual mind are hard believers in that all magic is science unexplained. But tonight, she's just having fun with the idea.

“Sounds fake,” Hunk agrees easily.

“We've been ruined by the separation of literary genres.”

“I don't want to be that person, but I'm pretty sure magic in space has to have been done by someone before,” Lance points out.

“Do you think there's, like, actual magic on earth then?” Hunk asks.

Lance smiles to himself. Yes, oh yes, there is.

 

His feelings of inadequacy didn't start up among the stars, among his makeshift family of gifted people. His life is more science-fiction nowadays, but it started as your average fantastic children story -except Lance wasn't the hero.

No, it started every summer, at his cousin's house.

He dreams about it sometimes: the light on gold grass and the sea through the trees, the old house on top of the hill. Children's laughter and lazy days.

The sun made them all shine like wild gods; Lance, next to them, was desaturated colors.

His family was never active in making him feel _less_ – existing was enough to show him everything he lacked.

One time he said to them, laughing through the insecurity, “I bet you wouldn't last a day without using one spell.”

Cousins and siblings, not used to backing down from a challenge, went through the hours grumbling and sighing. All in good nature, that much was true, but when the night fell and Lance told them they could stop, they still celebrated.

Rafi ruffled his hair with a chuckle. “You're the best of us all,” he said softly while scatterbrained Loana recounted how many time she had to get up the stairs to fetch this or that.

Lance thought, _but look at you being so relieved not to be like me_ , and he thought, _even without using your powers you're all so much more_. It didn't take away the old-as-the-world wildness coursing through their veins. Lance has never been afraid of the dark because he knows the kind but dreadful creatures that roam in the night, taming the fog and the wolves; they share the same blood.

His mamá said, once, “Boy, you don't need magic to be a witch.” He never believed that.

And now Lance finds out that he can go the farthest any human ever went away from their families, but he'll never be let out of the shadows. Growing out of his shortcomings is hard when even the ordinary magic of being a prodigy like his friends is out of reach.

Once again, he feels left in the dust.

After a long while of unbelieved compliments from Hunk and Shiro and even sometimes Allura and Pidge, there comes a beginning. It's not a solution yet, just a push in the right direction.

It comes from Keith.

He's not a people person but he likes comfortable silences with good company. There's meaning in this moment, then, of him opening up with words to Lance.

“Why?” Lance asks, close to the end of the conversation, mind as quiet as after flying and heart beating steady against his ribs. He remembers standing in the shack and wonders if he should resume running away from the threat of Keith's fire.

“It's like, in Western movies? When they always sit with backs to the wall or in front of a mirror? So no one can shoot them in the back.”

“Uh...huh. Yeah, never thought about that. Not big on those movies anyway if I'm honest.”

“I watched them with–” Keith skips and continues, “anyway. It's like that. But it's easier now with you. I know you have my back in a fight so I can concentrate better on what's right in front of me.”

The impact of his words is lost on Keith but Lance hears his own name in Keith's _you_ and takes the full measure of this deep trust so hard won. With the stars as witness, this quiet admission marks the start of something new. Of stepping out into the light.

 

“Okay, I got one. If you got a tattoo, what and where?”

“What's a tattoo?”

They tune out Shiro explaining to Allura even if it's intriguing: are her marks ink or just a natural Altean feature?

“I'd get a...quote. Like, on my arm? 'When appetite goes, anything goes!'”

After fist bumping his best friend, Lance says, “I'd get my face tattooed on my back so you can see this work of art even from behind,” he finger guns imaginary fans.

He topples to the side when Pidge shoves him hard. “Be real for two ticks, what'd you get?”

A wave, he thinks, or, or, a flower, or a constellation, or the feeling of weightlessness you only get in water and space. He rubs the bruise Pidge left behind and answers instead, “'Pidge killed me' right here, so they can lock you up when they find my dead b–”

The rest is lost to the pillow that hits him in the face. “If I kill you now there's no cops in space to catch me!”

Then it's a regular pillow fight that escalates when one projectile hits Keith. In the end, standing with one foot on two couch cushions, he declares his victory with, “My tattoo would say you all suck at pillow fights.”

Lance, from under said cushions, yell, “Well mine would say your hair sucks!”

It's something of a lie, because he cornered Keith one quintent, gave him hair routine advices and products he made himself. Keith never said anything, only smiled and lingered around Lance, and it's still a mullet right, but the change is obvious. Now, it's a damn soft one.

 

They fall asleep like that, talking about anything and everything and laughing until they cry, so tired at these late vargas that anything is hilarious.

In the morning, they'll laugh when one of them will whisper “Lukewarm,” even if they don't remember what started the joke and it doesn't have the same texture in the light. Nothing is the same outside of the thick darkness that feels protective next to the warm bodies of your friends.

It's funny, the things you never lose from childhood. You can forget how to believe the stories you made up for your dolls. How it feels to be immortal and have no care in the world but the scratch hidden under a band-aid and a kiss.

And then you go to sleep and your body remembers for you; Lance wedges himself tightly against his best friend, extends a foot to touch Pidge's shin because it's their compromise between cuddles and space. He clutches a sweater against his heart because his comfort blanket is galaxies away.

He feels Pidge's feet start to rub against each other as she falls asleep, a baby's reflex.

Behind him, he knows from years of sleeping in the same room that Hunk's got his thumb in his mouth and he remembers how embarrassed Hunk used to be of that habit.

Sometimes, when they wake up, they'll find Keith tucked in a corner in a tiny ball. They joke that he's actually santa because no matter how late they stay up, they never catch him coming in.

The real sneaky one is Shiro though, his presence never confirmed but suspected from half awake impression of his presence and remnants of his scent in the room.

The sleepovers are never planned and never mentioned; it's not a secret, it's simply the last thing that is just theirs. The last piece of being a child in a life that belongs to a whole universe. The only safeguard against the panic after the nightmares.

That's how, in the end, it's not Voltron that makes them family. It's being kids.

 

“ _Like the desert, waiting for the rain_ ,” he sings with emphasis, right next to Keith's ear sitting so close he's a line of warmth against Lance.

“If you don't shut up, your face will stop waiting for my fist.”

“ _I'm just sitting here, waiti–_ ”

They hear a thump and a yelp from the hallway where Keith chased after Lance, uncontrollable laughter.

“Welp, that's it, he's dead.”

 

The universe is full of little moments. All there is to do is connect the dots -more often than not, the dots are people, being here without pretense. Sharing a meal. Pushing each other in the hallways after a good joke. The intimacy of each doing their own thing, but side by side.

Being yourself because there is no point in pretending anymore.

Saving the universe is a side effect, something that happens between the lines. But war is enormous and the lines disappear, left without care. The people become footnotes.

So they cling -to one another, to memories, to little moments.

Tasting things they'd never have dreamed of. Singing the remembered half of loved songs. Exchanging gifts just cause they can. Coming back from battles that start to blend together and trying to forget the lives taken, trying to make every smile from someone saved count double.

 

“There you go,” Lance puts down the little jar next to Hunk as he sits down next to him.

Hunk snifs and wipes his eyes even as the tears keep coming. “Thanks, man.”

“Wanna let me see?” Lance murmurs. The quiet feels sacred in the dark viewing bay, the only light coming from the stars burning as far away as the prayers of altar candles.

Hunk uncovers the red skin under his sleeves; Lance doesn't comment, only picks up the jar to open it. The cream he carefully applies shows it's effectiveness in the tension that leaves Hunk's shoulders.

“Feels good,” he whispers.

“Thank my mom, she's the one who taught me–” potions, she chuckled, “ointments and stuff.”

“I think I killed her.” The words are so fast they're void of emotion. Hunk inhales sharply as if he could take them back. This stabs through Lance's heart. It's nothing new, talking about their feelings -though it usually took a few smuggled beers to loosen up their defenses.

It's the same, always; mummified feelings that aren't meant to be exposed to the air because then they crumble. You can never forget their shapes but you can't put them back: they're only dust now and the wind has taken them away to fill someone else's lung, and when that person breathes out it's a reminder that they _know_.

“Oh, Hunk, no. No, you didn't.” Lance takes Hunk's hand and has to wonder if even one of them is spared from guilt. If this is why they were chosen, for knowing the price of a life.

“I feel like I did, though. You know in the movies when they say they'd know if someone they love was dead and I _know_.” He breathes shakily. “I know I'll go back home and my mom will be gone and it'll be my fault because I left.” His voice cracks, his free hand going to scratch at the angry rash on his forearm. Lance intercepts it.

There's only so much anxiety you can take before it starts spilling out through your pores, an itch you can never calm, a peace you can never find.

“It's the fear talking,” Lance soothes. “Making up lies. Your mom is strong, like you. She won't die because of you, she'll live and fight to see you again I know it.”

Deep down, they're all eaten by something. You'd think war would be first priority in the long list of their concerns, but there's battles they've been fighting for too long to forget.

Everything is about loss: the Holts, the desert shack, the Champion, Altea. The illness of Hunk's mother.

Lance thinks about his brother, a bike, speed, flying, and how he wished it had been him instead because his hands don't make beautiful things. His hands are painted in the blood of his deadly accuracy with a rifle. He never wanted to hurt anyone.

“Thank you,” Hunk says after his tears dry up. “And I don't just mean for the cream. Thank you for being here.” He smiles like Lance had a say in his presence here, like it wasn't fate and a Lion.

Lance plays with the jar still between his fingers and appreciates the weight of what it means -healing. Maybe his mamá was right after all: powers or not, he can be a witch. If he sees earth again, if Voltron washes out of his blood, this is who he decides he'll be.

 

“And what about bigfoot?”

“Okay, so there's these pictures and–”

Keith has never talked that much at once and they soak it up. Pidge and Hunk rib him about his crazy cryptozoologic theories and he laughs.

If only they knew how close Keith is from the truth.

If only Keith knew, Lance breathlessly realizes. He's already captured a witch's heart.

 

Finding Shiro when he's vulnerable is a rarity. He's laid down on the cold floor looking at the stars through the ceiling, flesh hand cushioning his head.

Lance sits down in silence; but there's a kind of quiet that need to be broken.

“You had no choice, you know.” Vargas seem to pass between words, time only passing as fast as the planet they're flying by. It's red and pink and purple gases, winding around in a hypnotic dance.

“Hmm.” Even that simple sound is shaky. Over-thinking is a head's curse, so Lance decides that supporting is a leg's privilege.

“Do you want me to leave?” he asks first, respectful of boundaries. A negative shake of the head is Shiro's only answer. “Do you want to talk about it?”

The metal fingers of Shiro's right hand twitch minutely, noticed by Lance only because he happened to be watching them. “Can...can _you_ talk, for a while?” It doesn't sound easy to ask for that little. Shiro shoulders responsibilities he is so tired of having and doesn't admit he wishes for rest. They called him space dad once for a laugh. It was uncomfortable underneath the fondness he felt, because he's too young to be a father. He doesn't want to be one. He was never supposed to live long enough for that, too.

They must have felt it, never repeated the joke, but the memory never left.

Lance launches himself into an epic tale of getting in trouble with Hunk, setting the scene in the Garrison to ground Shiro in familiarity.

“–and then we just crashed, you know, but two v– two hours later, the alarm went off and the end credits of the movie were playing. We still don't know who put it on in the first place because it wasn't either of us so we figured we were haunted because of what we did.” Lance is convinced one of his sisters is responsible, but they swear magic can't be effective from this far away and anyway, “it would be a very lame prank.”

He firmly believes they messed up what they were going for and were too embarrassed to admit it.

“What movie?” Shiro's voice is more clear.

Lance thinks. “Princess Mononoke? Which Hunk didn't have on his computer, too.”

Shiro hums. “You've seen it for real?”

“Don't think so. Did you?”

“Yeah actually, it was my grandma's favorite.” He doesn't add anything for a moment, then he chuckles, not a happy soung. “Now that I think about it, it's weirdly fitting.”

“How so?”

“Well...,” he raises his metal arm. He turns it slowly as if looking for a weak point. “It's about this man whose arm gets injured by a god gone mad. He's consumed by his wound, and his anger makes it almost act on its own. But it makes him strong like a demon when he fights.”

Oh. _Oh_. Lance can only wait -no words would be enough now.

“And then they tell him that the only thing he can do is to, um...,” Shiro closes his fists, searching for the exact quote. “See with eyes unclouded by hate.”

“That sounds like a good thing to live by,” Lance muses. A faint ache closes around his heart, easy to ignore because familiar -homesickness. It's the little things, like not being able to watch any movie you'd want to when you want to, that make longing stand out the most.

“Yeah, I never really thought about it until now.” Shiro sits up, only the back of his cheek visible to Lance now, illuminated by the red glow of the planet. “I think I want to try and do that.”

“You had no choice,” Lance repeats, “none of us do. Nothing to do with hate.” It's a sad truth, one that keeps them awake at night. Lance doesn't know if they'll ever heal from all the damage.

Lance has an instant to wonder how much Shiro really remembers from the arena, if he can still hear cheering for the Champion every time he has to take a life. The quiet stretches long enough for a moon to rise. The little blue rock looks like nothing much next to its colorful planet, but just like Shiro letting himself be found in a moment of vulnerability, if feels gigantic.

 

Lance dreams. He's five and looking at his siblings; when he grows up he wants to be just like them.

His father takes him fishing at night, makes the stars light up brighter and the sea shine, it's the most beautiful thing Lance has ever seen. Will ever see. Future memories superimpose themselves on the moment: planets from above, nebulae, galaxies at the tips of his extended fingers. Nothing comes close to this night but he will chase the feeling his whole life.

Lance, at five, believes space will be just like the safety of his father's magic.

He's ten, looking at his siblings. Why couldn't he grow up to be more like them?

His mother teaches him how to heal others, that it doesn't need more than love and knowledge. She tries to show him he is whole but every mirror Lance looks into is a reminder of all that he isn't.

He looks up at the stars. He imagines it to be all that he isn't.

Lance dreams. He's nineteen, floating in the void of space and no matter how hard he tries, the pale blue dot is always too far away to reach.

 

Pidge's stature would make you believe she's the delicate one; but she's all sharp edges.

She loathes the feeling of someone else's breath in her ear when she's focused, would rather sit apart than let anyone's skin touch hers even casually.

But sometimes, she needs the contact. Like an elastic slapping back, pushing people away means short-lived moments of craving company. Lance takes every single piece of that she's willing to give.

They're in the lounge, her head on Lance's stomach, contemplating how the stars seem unmoving when the ship is never still.

She breaks the silence with something inconsequential. “Dude, how are you so scrawny, your hip is digging into my neck,” she complains while adjusting her position.

Lance scoffs. “I'm all muscles and awesomeness, shorty.”

She can't look at her target so the jab to his stomach is awkwardly aimed and makes him jerk under her head.

In the silence that follows his indignant cry, he reflects on what Pidge said. It's a relief he's not sure he can explain, to be somewhat bony. It itches sometimes, the need to look and touch, make sure brittle bones are unbroken.

He runs his fingers on thin skin and scars sometimes, evaluates how much of him is real from all the hollow parts of him he can feel.

“Do you ever think of all the pranks you missed?” Pidge brings him back to the moment.

“What'd you mean?”

“Like, Matt. We would drive everyone crazy with pranks, including each other. It's stupid but...of all the things I miss, I didn't think the prank would make the list.”

“You'll find them,” he says in the space Pidge leaves empty, with a certainty in his voice that doesn't make room for doubt. “We'll keep helping as much as we can. And then you can both terrorize us all.” He thinks for a tick, then grins. “Wanna practice on the others?”

They share a mischievous look. “Hell yeah.”

 

“What did you want to be when you grow up?”

“I never thought I'd grow up to be something,” Keith answers, brutal honesty. Sharing instead of hiding seems to be his new normal. “What about you?”

A witch, a pilot, Lance thinks. He shrugs, suddenly at loss for words.

“Didn't you want to be famous?” Keith asks, a smirk on his lips but a playful one.

Lance laughs. “Not at first,” he says, doesn't have the courage to tell the truth: all he wanted was to be _seen_ and it never seemed like anything short of becoming a star -burning from far away, making things grow- would be enough.

Keith used to be a new shadow, a new magic Lance couldn't play with -a human stuck in a world of gods. Then Keith became a fire that could eat at the powerless witchcraft inside Lance's veins. It's scary, that Lance is less and less afraid of this.

So at first, no, Lance didn't want to be a hero. He just wanted the light to reach him so he could grow. He thought space would be nothing but sunlight -now he knows the stars are too far away to be warm, or scorchingly close.

 

“And then he just, you know, slipped on a banana peal or something ridiculous, and this big guy who took risks all the time, he died banging his head on the sidewalk.”

Shiro's not exactly trying to be funny, especially since this started as a cautionary tale. But even his lips are twitching.

“It's a tragedy, man, that's what it is,” Hunk declares, earnest but still shaking with repressed laughs.

“Yeah, I bet Keith survived alone for fifteen dobashes against an army of Galra, and one quintent we'll find him, like, his bathrobe caught fire!”

“Joke's one you Lance, you're the one with the bathrobe,” Keith flips Lance off.

Maybe it's morbid, maybe it's cathartic, maybe it's being drunk on surviving, but they all crack up at that and then they just can't stop.

 

“Don't you fucking talk about collateral damage, okay, don't you fucking dare!” Pidge yells, getting away with the very human swears because it's only Lance and Keith there with her.

“Calm do–” Lance tries to placate, but they don't listen, lost in their own voices.

“Except it happens, and we can't spend all the time thinking about it or we won't do shit! We can't fight if we're worr–”

“That's rich coming from you!”

“What does that even mean?”

Lance watches the explosion like it's in slow motion, unable to move. They don't realize he's caught in the blast.

“You fucking dropped out and risked everything for Shiro and don't even try to lie, you'd risk everyone else's life if it happened again because he's the only thing that matters to you! My brother–” her voice catches on the word, but she barrels through the pain, “and my dad and your precious Shiro, they were all collateral, you moron, and what did that make you feel, huh? You'd leave us all to die if _he_ was in danger so stop being so hypocritical.”

“Shut up! _Shut up!_ That's not fair, Pidge, he was all I had! How can you–”

“You're just a selfish–”

Hunk runs in with Shiro in tow just in time to keep the punches from flying.

“Why didn't you stop them?” Shiro asks later. Lance desperately fishes for a clever answer or a joke, but comes up empty.

What should have been done on the battlefield is easy to point out once it's part of the past, but sometimes all you can do in the crossfire is put your shield up and pray. And Lance, he's always been the type to _be_ the collateral damage, powerless and defenseless and so much less.

This is why he wanted to take his future by the hand, lead his own life. Becoming a hero wasn't expected -most quintents he wonders when he'll finally feel like one- but dying like one would be nice. No one understands better than him, though, that it's not a choice.

He wraps his arms around himself. Right there, his ribs expending with each of his breaths: he's alive. He's shaking, he vaguely registers. The hand on his shoulder is magnanimity.

“Those two are a lot to handle alone,” Shiro closes the chapter.

But that's not it. It's this:

The shrapnel of Pidge and Keith's pain pierced Lance's skin; he can still feel the pieces tearing through him. The fight shook him, but more than than it's the memories.

This is not the first family Lance saw pouring salt over fresh wounds to chase a feeling of absolution while making sure everyone else feels the same pain. Sometimes, all people can do is hurt each other to hurt themselves; sometimes, you turn on the living because you can't punish the dead and the absents.

The worst part, back home, had been how very careful they had stepped around Lance when all he asked for was to be allowed his anger. Allowed to yell and blame god and fate and the uncaring magic that hadn't saved Rafi; and Rafi himself for forgetting he was still human.

That his little brother at the back of the bike hadn't been one of the gifted.

Keith and Pidge, placed in the same space right after the fight, turn the air electric with tension. But when asked what happened, they look at each other then at Lance -who was so certain they forgot he was in the room with them- and come to a silent decision.

No one tells Shiro what was said. This silence heals the distance the argument created. It's not exactly healthy, but they bury all of it under an unmarked tombstone -never to be found again.

Though, outside his bedroom the next quintent Lance finds a memory chip with his favorite movie on it -Pidge's best bargaining tool until now. He might also be imagining it, but it seems Keith goes easy on him in training too, letting Lance kick his ass and boast about it for a whole varga and a half.

That night, they get as close to cuddling as they are comfortable with, and watch the movie until they fall asleep. Keith doesn't curl up like the world hurts, but stays right next to them.

They fight, and they can be bad at communicating when it means letting people in. But they have their own ways of asking and giving forgiveness, and they're still alive to do so.

 

“What else do you miss?” Lance asks; it's a sort of game he plays sometimes with Coran. Lance doesn't understand half of Coran's past with its foreign words, but he gets the longing. He gets the tear-filled eyes, and he remembers how it feels when no one lets you mourn.

“What you would call movies,” Coran answers, twirling his mustache in thought as he does when he's having a laugh or when he's really sad. “But I suppose I have been missing those for far longer than since waking up.”

War, Lance thinks.

“Rise movies were all the rage before–” Coran stops himself, lost for a moment.

“Rise movies?”

Coran turns to Lance, smile on his lips like something funny just occurred to him. “Yes, ordinary people doing great things. Becoming heroes for great causes, small or big.”

Lance hums. “Superheroes.”

“Superheroes,” Coran echoes, testing the word, never looking away from Lance. “What do superheroes do that heroes don't?”

“I don't know,” Lance shrugs, “hero stuff but with more power? Saving people, stopping bad guys.”

“Jumping in front of bombs?”

Lance turns back to Coran then. Words stay stuck in his throat.

“It's alright, young Paladin,” Coran turns away, “you don't have to believe just yet. Trust this: you, here, makes it easier to miss home.”

Lance barely finds the strength to says, “You too,” heart hammering with the effort to keep the tears in. The stars light up brighter, the room glows softly, warm as his family's magic.

 

Lance wonders, as he's lying there on a cold metal floor -not the snow, too hard to be the soft, numbing snow- looking up at the cold winking stars -not...not the snow- how it is he got more than he was supposed to. Maybe it's fate that kept him alive to find Voltron.

Few can even imagine the life he's lived, all on borrowed time. And he finally made something worthy of it, giving away that time to someone more deserving now -it's like Coran and the bomb except he's awake to feel the pain.

There's the dark shape of someone blocking out the stars between one blink and the next and what would be a voice if he still cared to listen. He thinks about burning giants in the sky that are so stubborn you still see their lights long after they're dead.

There's a broken whisper in his ear that pierces through the fog, echoing so deep in his bones he's not sure if it comes from him or not. _It should have been me_ , it says.

Sharp pain makes the voice stop to make way for a scream, brought by a distant pressure on his injury. After a few ticks, it stops hurting again. The voice picks up where it left off -hard, broken, burning, hunting- with words like _don't_ , and _die_ , and _on_ , and _me_ , and _please_ ; oh, he knows this voice and these eyes - _Keith_ \- but he's not familiar with the tears that spill from them. They look like love would if it were water shaped.

It's tragic, really, that words never fail Lance but he so rarely feels like he said the right thing. He'll die like he lived, with a feeling of incompletion, of wanting to say so much to this boy full of fire but instead–

His last gathered strength to say, “Look at the stars,” cough the iron of blood and warding spells and say, “I've been dead a long time.”

And then there's nothing. He can't feel his bones. There's nothing.

 

“Did we have a bonding moment again?” he'll ask later, and hope and hope that the answer won't be, “Nope, don't remember, never happened.”

 

Lance figured, once, this boy is hunter and his fire burns witches. His mamá said that you don't need magic to be a witch and he knows now, there's also a good kind of flame. He lets himself step up on the pyre.

Maybe he never needed to run away from Keith, maybe he wasted time; or maybe he was neither late nor early, just perfectly on time.

 

“I'm dying of hunger over here!”

“Too soon, dude,” Hunk mutters but still smiles, a little.

“Food? Food,” Pidge says, unusually clingy after the latest of Lance's close calls. The guilt lingers, from that time at the beginning when Lance almost died from a fake-rover bomb right when she decided to leave, though there's no way it was her fault.

“What are you cooking, pretty potato?” Lance asks, draping himself on Hunk's back, lanky arms around his best friend's neck. Behind them he hears Coran asking about the aesthetic of potatoes, but it's a very long joke to explain.

“I don't know, what do you like?” Hunk pretends not to know the answer.

“Everything,” he answers, insisting on each syllable.

“I don't like complicated people like you.”

“I'm lactose intolerant,” Shiro pipes up out of nowhere, turning all eyes on him.

“What? Since when?”

Keith starts to laugh then. He almost fall off his chair, leaning on Lance to stay upright, laughing even harder when Pidge exclaims, “But you drank milkshakes!”

Shiro shrugs bashfully.

“Guys, he f–” Keith starts, but the rest is cut off by a hand on his mouth before he's tucked under Shiro's arm and dragged out of the room for a surprise training session.

“Well, I'm glad I lived to know Shiro has flaws, you know?”

Hunk groans and pushes Lance away, yelling, “Too soon!”

 

“Don't do that again,” Keith whispers in his ear.

“What, kissing you?” Lance tries to sound cocky, but his heartbeat steals the room his breaths should take.

“Dying.”

Maybe he shouldn't, but Lance laughs, delighted. He can't make any promises, but for Keith he'll use every bit of power his blood will grant him to try. After all, he's just started to find his way into the light. To grow.

 

One of Lance's cousins loved to pretend to be good at fortune telling. Stars and palm reading, tea leaves, crystal balls.

Did she see this coming, he wonders, the powerless witch chosen by a gigantic space familiar to save the universe, and the cryptid hunter that never saw the witch coming.

Did she see him broken, after the accident, and if she looks up at the stars now does she tell their family no. Don't worry. He's still alive up there, protecting all of us, and he loves deeply. He's loved fiercely. By the time his light reaches us, he's alive like nothing could ever be.

Loot at him, she says, look at him shine.

 

**Author's Note:**

> **A comment, even a short one, always makes the author happy, whether the story is new or old! :)**
> 
> No seriously guys, don't make me talk about my validation problem with my therapist, give me some love :D


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